“Ben left his change on the counter! I’ll be back in a minute!”
“Ben?” she replied. She hadn’t seen Ben come in and I didn’t have time to explain. He rapidly turned to escape. I ran for the door to yell his name before he climbed in his truck. Ben turned and I hurried right to him. “What’s going on?” I asked, sounding breathless and concerned and annoyed. A feat within itself.
He frowned and looked at his boots. There was definitely something wrong. Ben never acted like this.
“Is this about what I said? I’m sorry if I hurt or embarrassed you. I was shocked by what you said. How you assumed things I’d react to. You know me and my mouth, I say what I’m thinking too fast sometimes, but that doesn’t affect our friendship.”
Ben lifted his head and his eyes met mine. “That’s not what’s wrong Sammy Jo.”
Oh, it isn’t, is it? Well, then I was curious as to what it was because Jamie running off was weird. “Would you please tell me because both my friends are treating me strange as of late. I’d like to know why if you please?”
Ben closed his eyes tightly as if the words he would say were going to be painful and hurt me. As if he were safe if I couldn’t be seen.
“Jamie’s pregnant.”
I stood there. He was safe. Eyes still closed, Ben gritting his teeth, the warm summer breeze tangling the hair breaking free of my ponytail, the strands dancing around my face, sticking to the sweat on my brow. I could see Norma Sanders crossing the road with her poodle Josie in the lead. The wafting smell from the bakery crept ever toward me, but even with all that familiarity I was lost, confused and alone. As if I’d stepped into another world. I was Alice down the rabbit hole. Looking skyward from the bottom frozen.
“Wh-what?” I managed to say.
Ben ran his hand over his face and made an odd high-pitched sound. Was he feeling as lost as me? So completely thrown for a loop? When had Jamie even had sex?
“She’s pregnant. She told me last night.”
She told him, Jamie told Ben, that she was pregnant, but didn’t tell me, her best friend on the face of the earth?
“She told you? You?” I repeated, still looking for that clue that this was a dream and couldn’t be actually happening.
“Yeah.”
“Why? How?” Why had she told him? How was she pregnant? Jamie? Last time I had checked she was a virgin, the two of us in a tiny minority.
I could see the tension in his shoulders. The stress etched on his blood-drained face. His eyes were wide and upward looking. This was as upsetting to him, as it was for me to hear it. Had he asked her these questions? Did he even know the answers? Who was the father of the child?
“We…we slept together. Just once. It wasn’t planned. We just…we…it happened. When it was over we swore we’d never tell and things would stay the same. But now, now, it’s different. Everything will change because it has to.”
My legs felt weak. I wasn’t sure I could stand. I was no longer living in reality. “When?” I asked, still not sure, I’d heard him correctly when he said it.
“Last month. The night we were going to Cullman to see a movie and get something to eat. You had to stay home and keep Henry.”
I remembered that night. Henry had fever. Momma had to go into the bakery to do a special order for a wedding. Milly was on a date, such a normal night, nothing strange or life changing at the moment.
But two young lives had been altered. Forever changed, eternally coursed.
“Sammy Jo!” Momma’s voice called out. I jerked my head around to see something nearer to a reality where I wasn’t uncomfortable. My mother. My angry mother. I had to get back to work.
“I…I have to go,” I stuttered and instead of trying to figure out the right thing to say at the moment, turned and left him there. “Congratulations” seemed an odd sentiment. Yet they had created a life. One that would blossom in Moulton and know this place as its own. A life that was their responsibility. Something they couldn’t take back.
Chapter Eight
Time crawled by the rest of the day and my head was so full of questions and concerns I couldn’t even eat the strawberries or cupcakes that Mr. Expensive had left me. My appetite was gone and in its place something that could only be described as fear for my friends had taken over.
I stepped into the evening summer sunshine after work. Momma had agreed I could go visit Jamie. I told her something was wrong and she needed a friend. Momma said to be home by dinnertime. Not much got by her so I figured she knew I was bothered by the interaction she’d interrupted earlier today with Ben. She didn’t question me or pause when she agreed.
I took my box of cupcakes and strawberries with me. Maybe Jamie would need a treat. Not that strawberries and cupcakes could fix this. She was eighteen and pregnant with a guy’s baby she was just friends with. Dear God, how had I not known they’d been intimate? Had she tried to tell me over the past month and I’d been so wrapped up in my life and dreams that I hadn’t been listening? If so, I was a terrible friend. I should have known this. Been there with her when she took the pregnancy test. She’d done that alone and where was I? Not there. That was where.
I hurried to her house hoping I wouldn’t need to track her down. Getting through the past few hours after talking to Ben had been hard. All I’d wanted to do was run to Jamie. Check on her. Talk to her. Make a thing okay that had already happened and would have to be lovingly dealt with.